


Gods and Monsters

by MagnoliaBloomfield



Category: Disney - Fandom, Loki - Fandom, Marvel, Thor - Fandom, ragnarock - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Loki - Freeform, Marvel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23791411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnoliaBloomfield/pseuds/MagnoliaBloomfield
Summary: Monsters. Are they defined by what they are on the inside? Or the outside? Sometimes they have to look out for each other. After all, maybe what the world needs now isn't another hero, but a monster.Mad scientists, an explosion, a missing carnival worker, dinosaurs spotted in New York, and Thor and Loki visit Earth. Can one monster redeem another? Can two save the world?
Relationships: Loki/OC, Thor/Carol, steve/natasha
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Barney Bailey attributed his success to The Three Fundamental Truths of Entertainment, as he called them. To appeal to the largest audience, a show must have three things: something cute, something dangerous, and something majestic. His hired hands called it the 'awe', 'whoa', and 'ooh' factors. 

In a simpler time this was achieved easily with a handful of clowns and a few adorable penguins performing in bow ties; fire eaters and sword jugglers and a ferocious tiger; acrobats and trapeze artists and two elegant elephants. He kept people of all ages coming from near and far with his trinity of entertainment, and success came easy to Mr. Barney Bailey. But nothing lasts forever. 

When men in metal suits took to the skies, super soldiers emerged from the ice, and mankind knew without a doubt they weren't alone in the universe, it became more difficult to impress people. After the attack on New York, business became nonexistent for a while. After people started to get back on their feet a few would trickle back into the stands with ghostly eyes and hollow applause. No awe, no whoa, no ooh. Shows were scheduled on Saturday only and staff reduced to free up funds for finding the next big thing. And find it he did. 

Well, maybe that's not entirely accurate. Mr Bailey was not the kind of man who rolled up his sleeves and got to work, he paid others to do it for him. The newest names on his payroll were Tex Taylor, and Professor Schultz. Tex came first, a self proclaimed cowboy and jack of all trades, he looked for people who would pay him to have his idea of fun and go on adventures. Intel had led him to Antarctica where he made the most unexpected discovery. If not for all the photo and video evidence, Bailey wouldn't have believed it for a hot second. In fact, it was such a massive discovery that it was difficult to transport anything impressive back to the states, almost impossible. Almost. 

That's where the Professor came in. Mr Bailey had developed a Don't Ask Don't Tell relationship with the mysterious Professor Schultz, mostly because he was honestly afraid of the answers he might get, or worse, the consequences of asking in the first place. But Schultz was more than competent when it came to DNA and had access to some very interesting materials. And as long as Schultz assured him the project would be a success, Bailey was happy enough to let the odd jars of tissue samples and the large glowing generator slide without question. 

There's been some argument about whether that was his first mistake or second, but honestly, Barney Bailey made a lot of mistakes. He could have turned Tex in, he could have informed the world of his discovery and let science make it noble instead of immediately marketing it for his own gain. Then he wouldn't have had to speak to someone as morally questionable as Professor Schultz in the first place. Who knows if Bailey could even have dug up any of Schultz's past anyway, or if he would have even lived to tell the tale of what he found. 

The one redeeming thing Bailey did, though, was to hire Magnolia Smith. He had hired her 6 months after the attack. She had lost both her parents in it and had been placed in one of the special rehabilitative homes Pepper Pots had set up throughout the city. She underwent therapy and learned how to live on her own from then on. She had an aptitude with animals, but not medicine or science as much, so veterinary care was not within her realm of possible careers, but she was a very good caretaker. She kept his remaining animals well fed and cared for during the week and he didn't have to pay her nearly as much as a professional. Besides, those animals would be donated to the nearest zoo the moment his new attraction was on its feet, and that would be very soon indeed. At least that's what he thought. 

"Fretting again, Mags?" Schultz's assistant Olaf asked her. 

She had brought the penguins out to play in a few kiddie pools full of water and ice blocks, and one of the carnivals old snow cone machines churned out a pile of slush in one empty pool. Magnolia was staring at the rectangular gray building in front of her as the dapper birds happily played around her, but turned at the sound of Olaf's voice. 

"Worry is a misuse of imagination," the corner of her mouth went up ever so slightly, in a way Olaf now recognized as her form of greeting. 

Olaf himself smiled more broadly as she turned back and resumed staring at the building, one of its large steel doors in particular. In a few strides he was standing beside her, being careful not to step in penguin droppings. Olaf was dressed very nicely in shiny shoes and crisp black dress pants, his Burberry trench coat blowing just right in the early autumn breeze. He always exaggerated his posture around Magnolia since she was only 3 inches shorter than him, less in her chunky, filth encrusted rain boots. 

"You know, you have such a way with words, you really should have become a writer instead," he told her, chancing a glance at her profile for some kind of reaction. 

Her strong brows were furrowed and remained that way. 

"Mmm," she hummed, noncommittal. "Sounds nice but I had actual bills to pay."

"Right," Olaf snapped his fingers as he remembered, the penguins pausing to look at him as they recognized their cue. "You have my word we'll pay you that bonus once the animals are shipped off."

"And a word of recommendation with the zoo?" She asked without hesitation, actually turning to look at him with brows raised. 

He was usually taken aback on those rare occasions when another emotion besides sadness could be seen in her dark blue eyes. 

"I really wish you would reconsider staying on with us and the new attraction," he said after a sigh. 

She shook her head, the stoic expression returning as she gazed back at the building, one penguin pecking at her boot. 

"Oh come on Mags," he stepped into her field of vision, tired of her stubbornness. "At one time or another everyone has been obsessed with or fascinated by these things- including you! And now that they're a reality again, I'd think you of all people would be chomping at the bit to see one up close. I know we've all seen the movies where everything goes wrong and it's a 'bad idea' blah, blah, blah- but this isn't a movie. It's not as bad as you think it's going to be- let me prove it to you."

Those last words caught her attention and she actually focused on him now. Taking that as a good sign he continued. 

"Yes, let me show you. At 1:15 the professor goes to lunch, meet me at that door precisely at 1:15," he instructed her, a triumphant smile on his handsome face as he turned and walked off, not even letting her respond. 

That smugness stayed with Olaf the whole morning, putting an extra pep in his step that even the exceptionally grumpy professor noticed. He'd mumbled the word 'brainless' in German as he shook his head, but that was the extent of his commentary. At 1:14 he leaned by the door, fully expecting Mag's dainty yet dirty knuckles to rap on it any moment. By 1:20 all smugness was wiped from his face. Finally he glowered through the glass slit at eye level in the door and spotted her through the open paddock door. 

Magnolia sat on the straw covered floor of the paddock, playing with Tom Cat as one would a normal house cat, just with a much larger cat toy. Tom Cat's large paws swiped at the mop head as she swayed it back and forth in front of the bars of his enclosure. Suddenly Tom Cat stopped his playing and looked to his left. Magnolia followed his gaze and was surprised to see Olaf stomping up to her, his ridiculous shoes echoing sharply on the wood floors, their rhythm interrupted as he skittered around a pile of elephant crap. 

"You're late!" He said as he got closer, blond curls bouncing. 

"For what?" She tilted her head up to stare him once he was beside her. 

"I told you to meet me at- never mind, just come on. The professor will be back at 1:45 on the dot and it's already 1:25!" He cried looking at his watch. 

"Look," she began as she set the mop down and stood up, brushing straw off her backside. "I don't think-"

"I agree, you're not thinking," he cut her off and gripped her shoulders. "Because if you were, you'd realize that once the attraction opens, you'd never be able to afford the ticket to see these things. I'm offering you a free behind the scenes tour! You would be one of four people to ever see the very first ones as juveniles! Mags, please! Just-" he glanced at his watch again- "17 minutes. Can you give me just 17 minutes?"

She looked at him and slowly bit her bottom lip as his words sunk in. She absolutely didn't want to stick around for when this all went horribly wrong, but she had to admit it would be a shame to miss it altogether. 

"Don't stand too close to the cage," she said just as the tiger growled and made a swipe at Olaf. 

He yelped and jumped away from the cage, releasing Magnolia's shoulders in the process. He'd always wondered how she was able to predict the animals behavior so accurately. Surely she would be a valuable asset to them. 

"Tom Cat hates you, remember?" She said as she began walking. "You got 15 minutes."

Olaf grinned as he hurried to catch up with her, his brush with potential mauling forgotten. He knew nobody, not even the moody Mags, could resist real live dinosaurs.


	2. Paranoia

The room was so hot and humid, it felt like it knocked the wind right out of Magnolia as soon as she walked in. With a deep breath she immediately took off her jacket, tying it around her waist, and pushed up the sleeves of her shirt. Finally, she started picking up on all the sounds around her. High chitters and low hums; snorts and screeches; the thump of heavy foot falls and skitter of tiny claws.

The room around her was a lot bigger than she expected, and it was sectioned off into various enclosures. Each one was cut off from its neighbors by a foot of concrete. In the center of the room was a table with computers and microscopes and things Magnolia couldn't identify. A large monitor was attached to each cage, showing the animals inside in infrared and listing real time details such as temperature and heart rate. There was a variety of young dinosaurs and Magnolia could recognize most of them. There was a triceratops, stegosaurus, ankylosaurus, parasaurolophus, compsognathus, pachycephalosaurus, and a long neck she could only guess was a brachiosaurus. There was an aquarium like enclosure that held an alligator like creature as well. 

Olaf grinned to himself at the awestruck look on Magnolia's normally stoic face. There was a liveliness in her eyes and a genuine smile lit her lips. 

"Oh my god!" She laughed as she looked around. 

She went up to the enclosure with the triceratops and crouched in front of the curious creature. 

"It's a triceratops? Or a protoceratops?" She asked him. 

"That one is a triceratops, the horns are just developing. The other one is a Sinoceratops," he told her, proudly walking up beside her. 

"Other one? Oh!" She gasped as another similar creature got up from the foliage in the back of the enclosure. 

The two animals bleated back and forth, their frills knocking together as they both tried to investigate the girl in front of them. 

"Can I touch them?" She asked Olaf hopefully. 

He pursed his lips as he rolled up his sleeves as well, exposing a tattoo of a lighthouse on his inner forearm. 

"Their little beaks are quite sharp, I recommend petting the steg or the ankylosaurus."

Magnolia grinned up at him before turning on her heels and sliding over to the next enclosure. The serene little stegosaurus was happily nosing a little ball around but turned to look at Magnolia when she popped over. He made his odd little noise, the happiest sounding of all the animals in there, and Magnolia giggled. She gently stroked under his chin and he seemed to enjoy it as much as any house pet would. 

"He's so cute!!" Magnolia said so emphatically she almost growled.  
"How many species do you have?"

"Well, we have DNA for about 20 species, and we've made 10 so far," Olaf said as he knelt beside her.

"Wow, 20," Magnolia murmured as she kept petting the stegosaurus. "What haven't you made?"

"Oh things like the T-Rex, obviously. We'll be saving all the dangerous ones for last once we've worked out all the bugs and learned how to handle things with these more gentle ones," he offered hesitantly, trying not to give too much away. 

Magnolia gave one humorless snort of a laugh. "They're all going to be dangerous, the only difference is some will eat you after they kill you."

Olaf shook his head, a note of arrogance on his otherwise charming features.   
"The herbivores won't be any problem," he told her, very self assuredly. 

"What are goats? Herbivores or Carnivores?" She asked him. 

"Herbivores," he replied with a sideways look. 

"And what are they known for?"

He shrugged.   
"Butting heads, I guess?"

"You ever get head-butted by one at the petting zoo?"

"I guess so, why?" He finally questioned, impatient for her to get to the point. 

"Well, you just made 10 ton goats," she nodded at the triceratops who were butting their little hornless heads in a play fight. "And this guy basically has a wrecking ball for a tail, I hope he doesn't wag it like a dog."

Olaf was starting to dislike her observations, especially when they were completely unnecessary. He wanted to tell her so, wanted to tell her exactly what they were capable of doing and how much it would benefit mankind, but knew better. Professor Schultz had him gagged with a contract. Mags was too much of a goody goody to not blow the whistle on anything she didn't like, and Olaf would rather not put her in harms way. No matter how infuriating she was. 

"Look, I can't tell you all the details, but everything is going to be fine. There are very strict controls in place and being further developed. It's highly unlikely they'll do anything we don't want them to," Olaf carefully worded his reply, hoping to stifle her negative but logical complaints. 

"What, you making remote controlled dinosaurs?" She scoffed as she examined the plates of the stegosaur who was rubbing against the bars of his enclosure. 

She turned to look at Olaf when he didn't respond and saw him just shrug at her before standing up. Her disbelieving gaze followed him as he walked across the room. That was when she noticed a door with a small slit at eye level, just like the door on the outside of the building, but this one had a blue glow coming from it. 

A wariness settled over her like a blanket, and she bit back the snappy comment on the tip of her tongue. Something was amiss here, just didn't feel right. As she looked around and more closely at things, she got the feeling this wasn't so much a zoo like presentation to the world, but an experiment. Sure, anything with dinosaurs would seem experimental since they'd been extinct so long, but still. The care given to the animals was not so much for the animals sakes, but theirs- Schultz and Olaf and Bailey. 

Olaf was typing on one of the computers. Magnolia kept a cautious eye on him as she walked by the other enclosures, observing the creatures inside as if they were run of the mill zoo exhibits. When she got near the door on the far side she glanced Olaf's way. The monitor he was looking at was right between them, blocking his view of her. She chanced a quick glance inside the room through the slit and saw the source of the blue light. 

On the far wall was a cylindrical generator that glowed blue. The rest of the room was set up as a lab, with tiny refrigerators with clear doors holding vials of liquids, chemicals, dna, who knew what. And on the counters were larger jars, the words 'specimen jars' came to her mind, the kinds of things scientists held their little fetal pigs in. But these jars held large chunks of unfamiliar and unrecognizable flesh. To the right she caught a corner of what looked like a cage. It seemed like it was neither big enough for half the creatures in here, or small enough for the other half, but it had a monitor on it just like the others. If Magnolia didn't know any better she'd have said it was human sized. 

"Hey," Olaf said, placing a hand on her shoulder suddenly. 

Magnolia jumped and even gasped despite herself. She tried to hide how shaken she was by the thoughts running through her mind about that room and decided to play dumb. 

"So is that, like, the vet room? In case one of them gets sick, or something?" She asked as innocently as she could. 

"Yeah," Olaf nodded, easily accepting her lie and running with it. "That's what it is."

"Oh, look! You have my favorite," she exclaimed and got her self away from both the room and Olaf. 

"The Parasaurolophus?" Olaf asked dubiously as he strolled over to her side in front of the animals cage. "Why this one?"

The animal was almost as tall as Magnolia on its hind legs, it must have been one of the first ones they made. She reached through the bar and gently held the hand like toes on its front foot. 

"I dunno," she sighed. "They're kind of elegant."

"Did you know," Olaf began in a know it all tone. "That scientists believed their horn was used for communication?"

"Really?" Magnolia asked even though she knew this already. She just hoped he would soon forget the whole door incident. 

Olaf nodded with a satisfied smirk.   
"We have proved that theory correct."

His smugness was as palpable as the humidity that clung to her upper lip, and just as distasteful. 

"Think of all the first hand knowledge we'll finally have about all these creatures!" He said excitedly as he opened his arms wide to the room around them. "Science has reverse engineered so many things from animals around us today... more aerodynamic cars, bullet proof vests- think what we could get from these guys!"

The blanket of wariness over Magnolia became heavier. Something nagged at Magnolia's gut and begged her to run- run and alert authorities, call the avengers, anything. But a fear kept her still and silent, submissively nodding in agreement with whatever Olaf said. Fear of the blue glowing room and a cage just her size.


	3. Good Intentions

"So there's this kinda weird, kinda hot girl that lives in my apartment building, and I kinda might have told her you had a Stark internship and now she kinda wants to talk to you."

Peter Parker slowly turned from his locker to stare at his best friend, Ned. The latter had verbally projectile vomited all the info so fast Peter could barely make sense of it. 

"Why- why is she weird?" Peter addressed first, shutting his locker. 

"Well, she smells like a zoo," Ned replied as they walked down the hall together. 

"She smells like a zoo."

"And her parents are dead."

"Ned, is she a super villain or something?"

Ned laughed at the worried edge in Peter's voice.   
"No! No, nothing like that," he assured him. "Besides, if a weird smell and dead parents constituted a super villain I'd be more worried about you."

"Touché," Peter nodded. "What does she want to talk to me about?"

"I don't know, she wouldn't tell me. She was kind of squirrelly, I think someone might be after her."

"So does she need to talk to Peter Parker the Stark intern, or .. spirrmnnn?" Peter mumbled the last word out the corner of his mouth, afraid someone might overhear.

"Sperm? What?" Ned asked in confusion, wrinkling his nose. 

Peter rolled his eyes and pulled him by the back pack strap into an empty stair way. 

"Spider-Man," He said clearly. 

"Oh! Well, I don't know. Depends on what she says to Peter Parker the Stark intern," Ned shrugged. 

"Gah, alright," Peter sighed as he ran his hands through his curly hair. "But you gotta stop telling people I intern there."

"Yeah, right."

Magnolia leaned on a bike rack in front of the high school. She'd taken the time to dress a bit more like a regular human being, put on some nicer jeans with no holes or stains, and wore a shirt that had been kept away from all her dirty dingy work clothes too. The kind of clothes she wore back when her parents were alive and she cared about things. Being clean and well dressed gave her the confidence to go get a Starbucks on the way too, like she used to. It had felt very good at first, she had missed being normal, but then it just reminded her that it would never truly be normal again. She was just pretending.

Right when the anxious shaking of her right leg turned positively violent and abnormal, Ned came out the school doors with another boy. She stood up straight as they approached her, Ned waving happily as he usually did. His giddy optimism was really annoying. 

"Hi Magnolia, this is my friend Peter that I told you about," Ned introduced them. 

"Nice to meet you," She shook his hand. 

"Same here. So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Peter asked her, nervousness showing itself on his knit brow and crossed arms. 

"Well, I know you probably get this a lot, but," she began, biting her lips on the B in 'but'. "I think there's something really dangerous going on at Barney Bailey's circus."

Peter kept looking at her, eyebrows raising higher as she stayed silent and did not provide further explanation. 

"And... you want me to..?"

"Can you see if anyone would look into it? Look, I'm not trying to be mysterious here, I'm trying to keep you safe, ok? Just do me a favor and tell somebody there's something fishy and see if they won't hack in and see what's really going on there." 

"Well, Peter and I can hack into-" Ned began but was cut off by Magnolia's hand coming down with a whap on his shoulder. 

"No! Don't you dare get involved," she told him seriously.   
"Neither of you," she added, looking at Peter. 

Peter could see it in her eyes then, the fear. 

"Ok," he nodded. "I'll bring it up today."

Her eyebrows flicked up the tiniest bit, a small amount of surprise showing on her face before it got serious again. 

"Ok," she nodded. "Thanks."

A semi awkward silence was brewing between the three. 

"See you, Ned," Magnolia said before turning and walking down the street, sipping an obnoxiously pink tea. 

"You're really gonna do it?" Ned asked Peter when she was far enough away. 

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Peter sighed through his nose.   
"I just got a feeling."

"Happy!" Peter called out, trailing behind the bulky head of security at Stark Tower. "Happy I need to talk to you!"

"What is it now kid? Cuz whatever it is I ain't got time for it," Happy said without slowing his pace. 

"I got a hot tip about some hinky business going on at the circus by the pier," Peter tried, jostling by people in the lobby. 

"What on earth did you just say?" Happy stopped to actually look at him in bewilderment. 

"This woman came to me cuz Ned told her I'm an intern here and she asked me for help. She said something dangerous is going on at Barney Bailey's circus."

"Are you sure she wasn't just a carnival barker? Come on kid, she was pulling your leg."

"I don't think so," Peter said adamantly. "She looked scared and told me and Ned not to look into it ourselves."

Happy eyed him in silence for a moment. 

"Ok, well," he looked around before leaning down to Peter and speaking softly. "If a certain friendly neighborhood so and so wanted to use a computer here to look into it, I can allow that. But I don't have the time or resources to give you more than that."

"Thank you, that's fine," Peter assured him. 

"So what did you find out so far?" Ned asked over the phone as Peter clicked away on the keyboard. 

"Something is not right here," Peter told him. 

"Why? Super weird stuff?"

"No, nothing weird. That's what's wrong."

"Oh. Do you think she was making it up?" Ned asked. 

"I don't think so, she had a look in her eyes- she was freaked out about something. I think she's right, something is going on, and it's big enough to get covered up really really well."

Ned started vocalizing the theme song of mission impossible completely off key. 

"You'll have to help me out with it after school tomorrow, but if I don't get home now aunt May is gonna kill me," Peter said as he packed up all his stuff. 

Peter left Stark tower that day with the intention of helping Magnolia the very next day, and that's the important thing to know. He obviously didn't know all the things that could go wrong before then, so we can't blame him for it. But, things were going to go wrong before then. 

Magnolia didn't know it either, so we can't blame her. Perhaps we could blame Olaf for forgetting the cameras or, better yet, let's blame Professor Schultz for just being a terrible human being in the first place. Either way, no one liked what was about to happen next.


	4. Conviction

Magnolia's alarm went off but she was already awake. Thunder rumbled outside and she felt it in the knot in her stomach. Maybe she could call in sick today?

Maybe she could disappear forever. 

But she didn't do either of those things. She got up, got dressed, and stepped out of her cozy, safe apartment. She took the stairs instead of the elevator, and then entered the rain. 

New York was like a shower wall that day. The rain wasn't heavy, yet everything was wet. Somehow even the subway walls were beaded with water, and everything was vaguely damp. Magnolia even discarded her breakfast because the banana, which had been fine at her apartment earlier, was now slimy. And so the morning went, damp and inconvenient as she changed trains and found herself standing across the street from the pier. 

Perhaps you can sympathize with Magnolia, I surely can, but I think it's only fair to point out that someone was having a much worse day than her and theirs started much earlier. In fact, I think it would not be an exaggeration to say that this particular person was having the worst day out of anyone on earth, on this given day at least. And what happened to them was definitely going to ruin Magnolia's evening. But I'm getting off timeline here. Where were we?

As Magnolia crossed the street and the gray, boxy building got bigger, she had a gut feeling that something was wrong. She tried not to look at the building as her pace quickened her toward the animals paddock. When she entered she was half surprised to see the animals were agitated as well. The elephants were swaying side to side, shuffling their feet as a deep sound resonated from their massive bodies. Tom Cat the tiger was pacing in his cage, avoiding a spattering of water that was leaking down in one corner of it. Even the penguins were flapping about, making their miniature tornado alarm noises. All of it together made it feel like the whole paddock was gently rocking back and forth and Magnolia almost lost her balance. 

But hey, who hasn't had a weird feeling day? And doesn't it seem to turn out that the days that feel the weirdest turn out to be the most ordinary by the end? That's what Magnolia tried to tell herself as she squared her shoulders and got to work, but the poor dear was wrong indeed. 

None of the animals would keep to their routine they had strictly followed before, Tom Cat even making a loud and unpleasant noise at her as she tried to herd him into the second cage so she could clean the one he was in. The elephants were not playful and the penguins wouldn't eat. 

After doing her best with them, Magnolia sat down at the computer Mr Bailey had provided her so she could look up information about the animals if needed. He reasoned it was cheaper than calling out a vet for any old thing. She checked the weather first, maybe they were aware of a storm coming. She looked and looked for answers to all their weird behavior for hours until she noticed something. 

They'd all gone dead quiet. She slowly turned and looked back at them to see them staring alert at the paddock door, a glimmer of blue light cut quickly by a shadow and then disappearing altogether. She glanced at her watch and realized she hadn't seen Olaf all day. He usually stopped in at least once a day to bug her, being ignored wasn't like him. 

She thought she could go over there and knock on the door, Olaf would answer it, and she'd ask if he noticed anything weird going on today. That seemed simple enough but she had a hard time convincing herself to do it. After a deep breath she stood up, wiped her hands on her jeans, and started walking uncharacteristically slow. The animals were still frozen and silent and she was afraid she might startle them. But honestly she was afraid too. Once she got to the door of the paddock she looked around outside thoroughly. Then she began another excruciatingly slow walk to the building. 

The sky was still dark with clouds and the wind whipped loose strands of her hair around. She realized that she had been breathing heavily through her mouth for a bit now and embarrassedly bit her bottom lip to stop it. She was just raising her hand to knock on the door when she heard it. The shriek. 

She spun around, pressing herself to the door, as she looked back toward the paddock where the sound had come from, but felt the added horror of falling backward as the door gave way. That sickly thick heat engulfed her as she tripped and fell back on her butt. Reflexively she kicked the door closed, thinking it would protect her from whatever was out there, but now she was in the dark, save for a red light and a few glowing monitors. 

There were shuffling sounds and moans from the creatures in there as well, the entire pier was uneasy. Magnolia slowly stood, trying to be quiet and hoping to spot any people before they spotted her. Soon she could tell she was alone, unless someone was in one of the enclosures. That thought made her more unsettled. She found herself moving toward that one room, you know, the one she couldn't wait to get away from yesterday? Yes, that's the one she was going toward now. Pretty silly if you ask me.

The door was slightly ajar, the blue light shining through the sliver. She made her way carefully through the dark and wondered if that cage would be empty or not when she got there. And what might be in it. At this point she could feel her heart beat throbbing all the way to the tip of her nose, let alone the normal places. She was coming up to the door now and gently placed a hand on it. She looked back at the room behind her once more before peering carefully through the gap as she eased the door open very slowly. 

The cage was empty. But the door was open. Books and papers lay all over the steel table in the middle of the room along with a metal case holding vials and bottles. Magnolia stepped in and took a closer look. There was a lot she didn't understand, but some things she recognized. Like the dinosaurs, sketches of people, things that almost looked like people with the word Skrull by them, and things that looked like DNA strands. Finally, her eyes lit on a very simple looking sheet of paper, which she picked up and began skimming. 

"... while the Skrull DNA has not provided the full range of shape shifting capabilities as we had hoped, we discovered we could give it a playlist if you will. We give it strands of DNA that it can can choose from to mimic. It would be all well and good to give you a soldier that can go from being a small, undetectable lizard that sneaks into the enemies camp before then turning into a massive Tyrannosaur, but we've gone a step further than that. We have created Chitauri hybrid dinosaurs ..."

Magnolia stopped reading as that word flashed in her mind. It sounded familiar, what was it? As she thought, her eyes landed on the vials, a particularly large specimen jar. It had a large chunk of slightly bloated flesh inside that she found herself staring at until it looked like something she'd seen the day her parents died. 

You know the sound of television static? That salt and pepper looking stuff that reminds you of when your foot falls asleep? That noise suddenly filled the room. To say Magnolia didn't jump six inches vertically and scream like a banshee would be, well, a lie. She turned around, a quivering hand now covering her mouth, as she looked at the monitor on the cage. 

The cage had held a guest today. Olaf stood inside, his curls limp with sweat and a look of defeat on his tear stained face. Professor Schultz was injecting him with a rather large syringe, his sleeve rolled up and exposing his lighthouse tattoo. 

"You are bearing a great privilege for such an idiot," Schultz said as he drew out the needle. "You're the first stepping stone to creating a new super soldier. And, should you survive this, your mission is to kill that nosey little elephant trainer you so foolishly brought in here."

"No, please no!" Olaf cried. "I like her, I just wanted her to see them! It's not her fault. No, please no! Wait!"

Schultz had walked off screen in the direction of the glowing blue generator on the wall, whatever he was going to do concerned Olaf deeply. Magnolia soon understood why. The whole cage became electrified with that bright blue glow, so bright it blurred out the whole video, all she could get was Olaf's screams. Then even those became garbled until the video glitched in and out and went black for a few seconds. It came back to life in time for a long, reptilian tail to be seen slipping out the door. And then professor Schultz was on the screen again, a large tablet in his hand. 

Magnolia held her breath as he turned and faced the camera. 

"If I were you I'd run now. But it won't really matter," he said into the camera. "Either way, you die tonight, Magnolia Smith."

Her blood ran cold as she looked around the room. For one, she was checking to make sure she was still alone, and secondly, she wanted to hold some kind of weapon in her hands. A certain amount of conviction was replacing her fear, a conviction that none of those things were ever coming to earth again, not if she could help it.


	5. Eye of the Tiger

It's unlikely that you've ever seen the theatrical trailer for your own death before, so you cannot even imagine it. You may think you'd keep your head and be logical, that you might be able to get through it, but it hasn't actually happened to you. Just keep that in mind as we watch Magnolia bumble through this, she's doing her best under the circumstances.

Now, she had the thought to stop what was going on here, and knew she had a limited time frame to do it in. She had no one to call for help, and no one she had to worry about protecting. You might say she had nothing to lose. She also was no Tony Stark or Bruce Banner, some one smart enough to understand what was going on here, someone who would make sense of the sketches and scientific notes on the table in front of her. Someone who might have warned her of the incredible powers she was about to mess with. But then we'd have no story to tell and that's no fun. 

The funny thing is, when someone believes they have nothing to lose, they still have something to lose: their own life. And even if they don't hold that in high regard, it's quite instinctual for them to try and protect it. So, when the door Magnolia had fallen through earlier began to open, her sense of self preservation moved her into action. She saw this smaller room also had a door, possibly leading outside. She had no way of knowing for sure but she went for it anyway. 

The wind had whipped up even more and a few fat raindrops hit Magnolia as she found her legs carrying her across the pier, wanting to take her far from danger. She made it to the paddock before her brain took control again. Where was she going? She had to do something, and as we mentioned before, she wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. She couldn't dismantle anything, she couldn't come up with a strategy, she had nothing to fight with; all she had was the destructive talents of a human being. 

She clenched her fists a few times as she stood there in the threshold of the paddock, damp and disheveled, breathing hard as she tried to figure out what to do. Her mind was filled with blue, blue, blue light. That generator on the wall, the thing that must have electrified Olaf in that cage. 

"I'm gonna blow it up," she mumbled to herself. 

Then she looked up at the animals standing there staring at her. 

"I'm going to blow it up," she told them more firmly as she pulled the keys from her hip and ran over to the penguins. 

She didn't know how big an explosion would or could be, so she wanted to give her animal friends a better chance for survival. She let the penguins out, herding them toward the other end of the paddock and out toward the beach. She then went to the elephants and tried to do the same with them, but they were a bit more stubborn. 

"Please move girls," she begged. "I'm trying to help you!" 

She began to cry as she pushed on their sturdy gray legs, hating the thought of anything bad happening to them. Finally, with loud trumpeting, they began to move out, following the path of the penguins. 

Magnolia sighed in relief and wiped her nose with a shaking hand. She looked from the door and shared a glance with the last prisoner to free, the tiger. That reminded her of something that sparked a bit of hope in her. She kicked up straw as she took off for the supply cabinets, one was locked because there was a tranquilizer and a pistol for emergencies. 

"I'm coming back for you, Tom Cat, I promise," she said as she tried not to fumble the keys too much, then attempted to load the weapon. "Come on, Nolia, you remember how to do this."

Tom Cat began making an unholy racket in his cage, noises she hadn't heard before, and her pulse quickened. She dared not turn around until the gun was ready to go. Finally she'd managed it, taking the safety off and cocking it before swinging around. Tom Cat was suddenly quiet, staring at her now. The gun followed her eyes as she looked around the paddock, making sure they were alone. 

"Ok, ok," she repeated to herself and the tiger as she went over to his cage. "I know we've never done this before, letting you go free, in fact, our whole relationship has been about avoiding this very thing, but I think it's for the best that I let you out. So long as you promise me a few things." 

She spoke very quickly and frantically as she unlocked his cage, constantly checking over her shoulders. It took her longer to unlock it with only one free hand as she was not letting that gun go for a second. Finally the padlock dropped to the floor and she stared at the cat. 

"Promise me that you won't eat your penguin brothers and sister, or maul the elephants, or hurt any people you come across out there in the world. Someone nice will find you all and you'll probably have better lives than you ever did here. And lastly. Please. For the love of god, don't maul me when I let you out, I have to do something very important before I die. Ok?"

Tom Cat had been staring at her with his bright eyes as if listening intently. When she'd finished speaking to him, he gave a tigers version of a 'meow' which she took as a sign of his agreement. 

"Ok," she sighed and slowly opened the cage door. 

Tom Cat stepped out cautiously and looked around. Magnolia had to stand between him and the gray building, wanting him to go the other way, away from the danger. He looked at the open paddock door then back at Magnolia. 

"It's ok," she told him. "You can go."

But he took a step toward her, looking like he didn't want to leave her. 

"We don't have all the time in the world buddy, you have to go," she said as she raised the gun toward the ceiling. 

When he still didn't go she squeezed both her eyes shut and the trigger, a loud pop making her ears ring and Tom Cat finally skitter toward the door. He got to the threshold and slid to a stop, his hairs standing on end. Magnolia watched as his head moved side to side, as though looking at something in the rain and darkness she couldn't see. He began to growl, his tail twitching and ears pinned back. And that's when Magnolia saw it. A small yellow-orange light moving through the darkness matching the tigers gaze. 

Have you ever heard a tiger roar? You may have heard them on your television or at the zoo perhaps, but have you ever really heard one roar? You'd know if you had because they can roar as loud as 114 decibels, about 25 times louder than a lawn mower, and 4 decibels louder than the average pain threshold for humans. So when something roared back even louder, Magnolia turned and ran. 

She never spared a glance over her shoulder, she just pushed through the burning in her lungs and ran as fast as she could back to the building. She slid across the pier and slammed into the door she'd come out of. It swung open and she spilled into the building again, this time landing in a wet, sticky mess of papers. She tried to ignore this long enough to kick the door closed behind her again. She guessed that if she could get it open so easily, so could whatever was out there. She had to act quickly. 

You know, life is a funny thing. The room Magnolia found herself in again was much different than the last time she'd seen it. Which is odd because she was there not that long ago. You see, even people who are geniuses can have bad days and malfunctions, which can be to the advantage of our not so bright heroes. At least for giving them some more time. That's what had happened here. 

Magnolia was now a complete mess, very unheroic looking. She was splayed out on the floor with sheets of paper, broken glass, and a lot of thick, sticky liquid. She raised her head off the floor and had a piece of paper stuck to her face. She pulled it off and saw a grainy photo of a gold scepter with a blue gem in it. That held no meaning to her and she tried to cast it aside, but it stuck to her hand as well. She tried to flick it off and that's when she noticed a chunk of flesh on the floor next to her waist. She gasped and scrambled in the slippery mess to get on her feet, which she eventually accomplished. 

As she stood there with papers stuck to various parts of her, she now saw a bigger picture of the disarray. The table had a large dent in it and most of the papers and samples that had been on it were now on the floor, but something new was on it. It resembled a rifle, it was about as long as one and had a butt like one to brace against your shoulder. But it was much more slender, and near the trigger was a dial- a knob like on a stove almost. And most distinct of all was a cylinder of orange light at the end of the barrel. She didn't take the time to realize it was the same kind of light she'd just seen outside with Tom cat, but hey, we're going easy on her. 

Finally she put it together that nothing had happened to changed her plan in any way, and turned to the blue glow on the wall. She took a deep breath as it finally sunk in, what she was about to do. Her life was going to end soon. 

She cocked the pistol again, began to raise it, but hesitated for a split second before bringing it all the way up. She put her other hand on it to steady the shaking and took another deep breath, through her nose and out her mouth. Again she squeezed her eyes shut as she pulled the trigger. 

Click. 

A wave of relief crashed sickeningly with a wave of panic as she realized nothing had happened. Her eyes shot open as her held breath came out sharply. 

"No, no," she panted as she cocked the gun and tried again, abandoning bracing for impact. 

Click.   
"Come on!"

Click.   
Click.

As fear and panic felt like they were trying to crack open her ribs and crawl out her chest, she tossed the pistol down on the slimy floor and turned to grab that rifle thing on the table. And as she got it in her hand and went to turn back to try and use it, she froze. 

Standing in the door way was a creature that struck pure horror through her system. It stood 7 feet tall, scaly black and blue skin gleaming with rain, teeth permanently bared; and on its slender arm, right before the three deadly claws, a faint but noticeable light house tattoo. 

"I'd put that down if I were you," came a voice with a heavy German accent. 

The velociraptor formerly known as Olaf took a few steps toward her and an older man in a lab coat, and looking a little worse for wear, entered the room from behind him. Magnolia had never seen professor Schultz in person before but knew this must be him. 

"I-is that Olaf?" She asked him, looking between him and the creature, confused as to why the creature wasn't attacking him. 

"It was," professor Schultz said as he glanced at a large tablet in his hand. "And I believe I told you to put that down."

"Why? You're going to kill me anyway," she said as tears fell from her eyes without her permission. 

"Yes, but how long that takes is still negotiable," Schultz informed her as he tapped something on his screen and the velociraptor crouched, ready to pounce on her, a dot of orange light now visible on top of its head. 

"Miss Smith, I really don't think you are faster than my creation," he scoffed at her. "And you are much too soft hearted, I think, to kill all those baby Dinosaurs in the next room. Weren't you particularly fond of the stegosaurus, I think it was?"

He was patronizing her, she could tell, but Magnolia hadn't realized that consequence to her plan and it did twist her heart as she remembered how cute that stegosaurus was. If she went on, if she somehow got this weapon to work before that monster tore her apart, she'd be killing herself, what might be left of Olaf, another human being, and all those juvenile dinosaurs in the next room- plus Tom Cat who just came in the other door. 

Wait. 

Magnolia noticed the Tiger creeping stealthily up behind the monster. She dared not stare too long though, in case she gave away this good news to Schultz. She just had to stall for a second. She glanced at the weapon in her hand, gave up figuring out its proper use and just held it like a baseball bat. 

"Well then, professor," she sighed, taking a wary glance at Tom cat inching closer. "Underestimating me is the last thing you'll do."

A look of rage clouded his face as he went back to his tablet, that's when he caught sight of his creation slowly turning its attention away from his intended target. Before it turned all the way, however, the tiger pounced. The thick reptilian tail swung at Schultz's head and he fell to the floor as Tom cat dug teeth and claws into the monsters back, the latter screeching in pain and anger. 

"Sorry Tom," Magnolia said before swinging with all her might, praying this was enough to do the trick. Praying it killed her before the monster could.


	6. The All Father

Far, far away, in the realm eternal, a place called Asgard, there ruled a mighty king. And if you think my use of a cliffhanger here is dramatic, just wait till you get a load of this guy. 

He was coming up on the anniversary of his fifth year in power and he'd accomplished so much. He withdrew the militia from off world so the soldiers were home with their families, and he'd established new enrichment activities such as a new theater of the arts. That's where he was on this perfect day, a day he thought was no different from all the others. 

The funny thing about being wrong is how unexpected it can be sometimes. Sometimes we expect it, probably has a little to do with ones own self esteem, but sometimes we become so complacent we forget the things we can be wrong about. Things could be going so well for you that you imagine it could never change and be any other way. Or things could be going so well for you that you imagine that at any second it could be ruined and gone forever with no chance of getting back to the way it was. Or perhaps you just don't care how things go for you. If there's a fourth type of person please let me know what that looks like. 

But let's get back to the maniac on our hands right now. He was lounging there in the shade with loyal subjects, drinking fine wine, being fed, watching a play that- if we're being honest- was highly overacted in his favor. Despite that fact, no one seemed to notice or care about this changed atmosphere in their home over the past five years. Perhaps that added to his own delusions. But today those would be shattered like a pane of glass met with a hammer.

"Father."

The voice took him by surprise and he almost spilled his wine. What idiot let Thor make it this far without warning? If Thor ever returned he was supposed to be promptly announced. Meeting him required a certain amount of preparation, and apparently he wasn't getting that today. 

"My son, Thor, has returned!" He announced after muttering a curse under his breath. "Greetings my boy."

Oh darn, did that come off awkward? He wondered as he stood there in much too casual garb. 

Subjects cannot question a king without risking their necks, but a Prince can. And a Prince would know him well enough to recognize an impostor. Really, how did Thor ambush him like this? It was quite annoying. 

"It's an interesting play. What is it called?" Thor questioned as he walked closer. 

He was sweaty and dirty, his hair longer than before and messier. He still had that miserable hammer and his mighty physique though. 

"The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard. The people wanted to commemorate him," he responded, his tongue more lead than silver today. 

"Indeed they should."

Ooh there was a tone to that. He liked the brute better when he was more blunt and direct, but time with the Midgardians had introduced a sly sarcasm to Thor's manners. 

"I like that statue," Thor said, gesturing past him with his hammer. "A lot better looking than when he was alive, though. A little less weaselly. Less greasy maybe."

He knew. He so knew. It was just a question of when he would be exposed. Perhaps there would still come a chance to save face, Thor wasn't that clever. 

"You know what this is?" Thor asked him suddenly as he pulled something off his back. 

He'd wondered what weird armor Thor was wearing and saw now that, those two spikes on either side of his back that had almost knocked over several citizens, were connected to a helmet looking thing. Oh wait!

"The skull of Surtur? That's a formidable weapon," he replied, glad his ruse wasn't given away by a simple trivia fact. 

Thor approached a Guard in the close vicinity and handed it over.

"Do me a favor. Lock this in a vault so it doesn't turn into a giant monster and destroy the whole planet," he requested. 

He was growing much too uncomfortable being out here in the open and surrounded by so many people when he didn't know what Thor's purpose being there was. Finally he tried to steady his tone and get something out of Thor. 

"So it's back to Midgard for you, is it?" He asked as nonchalantly as possible. 

Thor turned back to him and began tossing his hammer playfully in the air. The action drew even more eyes to them than already were watching. That stupid hammer. 

"Nope," Thor replied with an annoyingly casual tone. "I've been having this reocurring dream lately.  
Every night I see Asgard fall into ruins..."

Dreams? What interest were those to him? Thor leaving would be a dream come true at this moment. This was no time for a father and son heart to heart conversation, but he knew that wasn't the true intent. 

"That's just a silly dream... Signs of an overactive imagination," he chuckled, trying to discourage this subject. 

"Possibly..." Thor shrugged, and tossed Mjolnir right past a few heads in the audience. "But then I decide to go out there and investigate. And what do I find, but the Nine Realms completely in chaos. Enemies of Asgard assembling, plotting our demise, all while you, Odin, the  
protector of those Nine Realms, are  
sitting here in your bathrobe,  
eating grapes."

Dash it all, everything really was coming to an end today. But this five year deception would not be blown in a five minute conversation with that muscle bound dolt. He had chosen his rock and he would die upon it. 

"Well, it is best to respect our neighbors' freedom," he plaintively offered as Thor stepped closer. 

"Of course, the freedom to be massacred."

Now he was just scrambling as he tried not to be physically intimidated by Thor or his ridiculously loyal hammer. 

"Yes, besides, I have been rather busy myself-"

"Watching theatre."

"-Board meetings, and security council meetings..."

"You're really going to make me do it?" Thor was smiling in a way that did not bode well at all. 

"Do what?" He asked as if he didn't already know. 

Thor spun Mjolnir and then made a spectacle of throwing it off the balcony a good ways away before grabbing him by the back of the neck. 

The King's royal attendants gasped in shock, and body guards came to his aid but Thor pushes them away before leaning down to his ear. 

"You know that nothing will stop Mjolnir as it returns to my hand," he whispered. 

The speck of the hammer turns and starts getting larger as it rockets back toward them. 

"Not even your face."

His mouth goes dry as he knows he can do nothing. The real Odin would be able to stop Mjolnir, but he could not. The downside of unworthiness. 

"You've gone quite mad. You'll be executed for this!" He says, unable to keep the apprehension from his voice. 

Mjolnir approached at a terrifying speed as he struggled in his grasp. 

"Then I'll see you on the other side...brother," he says pointedly. 

Nothing can be done now except-

"Alright, I yield!"

The illusion shimmers and fades away to reveal the true form of Asgard's current king, Loki. 

Thor thrusts him aside in time to avoid being crushed by Mjolnir and he stumbles forward. The air is filled with gasps of surprise before falling completely silent. Loki takes a moment to compose himself before turning to Thor, putting his hands up non threateningly and plastering a smile on his face. 

The approaching sound of jangling armor can be heard before Skurge appears from the crowd.

"Behold!" He pants, completely winded. "Thor..Odinson."

Ah yes, the one to blame has arrived. Loki snaps his fingers at him in anger. 

"You had one job! Just the one," he complains with gritted teeth at his incompetent lackey. 

He doesn't have time to unleash his wrath however, because Thor is bearing down on him again. 

"Where's Odin?" He demands. 

Completely peeved by the situation, Loki decides to relieve some of his frustration on Thor and hopefully get a chance to mess with him. 

"You just couldn't stay away, could you?" Loki sighed. "Everything was fine without you. Asgard was prospering- You've ruined everything. Ask them."

He gestures to the crowd of citizens that are either exhibiting signs of shock still or look down right angry. 

Thor advanced toward him threateningly and Loki scrambled backward, not underestimating the look of malice on his features. 

"Where's father? Did you kill him?" He asked as he backed him onto his lounge once more. 

"You had what you wanted, you had  
the independence you asked for!" Loki was not completely done complaining, but Thor was completely done hearing it. 

He pressed his hammer into Loki's chest. 

"Ow-ow-ow! Alright! I know exactly  
where he is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was hard to write because I’m following the plot of Ragnarock pretty closely and it’s hard to seem original in parts that need to stay the same. Just bear with me for the next few, it’ll get better soon.


	7. New Acquaintances

Thor and Loki stood on a street in Midgard, the latter still not over the indignity done to him as he was towed unceremoniously to the bifrost and sent to this primitive realm. 

"I swear, I left him right here," Loki offered, arms crossed in his black on black on black suit. 

"Right here on the sidewalk? Or right there, where the building is being demolished?" Thor asks him, unimpressed. "Great planning."

"How was I supposed to know? Can't see into the future. I'm not a witch," he replied, annoyed. 

"Then why do you dress like one?"

"Hey," Loki warned pathetically, too tired to deal with all this. 

"I can't believe you're alive," Thor started with an angry edge in his voice, but it faded into a more raw and emotional tone as he went on. "I saw you die. I mourned you, I cried for you."

That was a bit unexpected and Loki didn't know how to process that right now. Wasn't he just mad about Odin a second ago? Why was Thor now going on about him?

"I'm honored?" Loki replied with a mildly confused tone. 

Wherever Thor was steering their conversation was derailed by two young girls coming up to them, giggling and whispering amongst themselves. 

"Hi. Would you mind taking a picture with us?" One asked Thor. 

"Sure," Thor responded, wiping the anger off his face and replacing it with a grin for the girls. 

Loki couldn't help but roll his eyes. These ridiculous Midgardians and their love for Thor. But just between you and I, he was a twinge sad too, even though by now he was almost used to being overlooked when Thor was around. 

"Oh, my god," the girl giggled as she looked at the photo she'd just taken. 

"Sorry to hear that Jane dumped you," the other girl said to Thor as they turned and walked off. 

That was new information to Loki. He stared after them, confused as to how they knew this. 

"She didn't dump me, you know," Thor told him, but the pain in his eyes said otherwise. "I dumped her. It was a mutual dumping."

Loki nodded and patted him on the shoulder, unsure what to say to that. Relationships were never his forte. 

"Anyways, you better start finding father," Thor snapped back to the matter at hand, grasping Loki's shoulder and poking a finger to his chest. 

Loki opened his mouth to respond but something reached his ears before he could. He turned and looked up the street, the hoarse, terrified screams of a woman approaching them. 

"Do you hear that?" Loki asked Thor, peering around cars blocking the street. 

"Loki! Don't try to stall, no more tricks, we need to find father!" Thor yelled at him. 

However, there were a few people turning their attention in the same direction. Suddenly a red and blue blur was tossed in the air about a block away. It let out a more masculine sounding scream, but barely. 

"Is that one of your friends?" Loki asked Thor a hint sarcastically. 

Suddenly, a vicious looking creature leapt on top of a stationary vehicle and took a look around. People began to scream and run. 

"Is that one of yours?" Thor shot back. 

Touché. 

"I just want to go home!" Came that female voice again. 

"Do you really not hear that?" Loki asked Thor yet again as he looked around them. 

"Hear what?" Thor asked, vaguely annoyed but willing to be concerned. 

"A woman's voice... hold on," Loki waited to see if it could be heard again. 

The creature, a two legged, reptilian looking thing with a long tapered tail, seemed to have gotten its bearings despite the blue and red boy trying to capture it with some kind of rope. It hopped down from the vehicle and was coming their way, towing the costumed pursuer with it. 

"Please! Don't kill me!" A man in the street yelled when it got close to him. 

"I'm not going to kill you- why would I kill you?" The woman's voice came, sounding mortified at the thought as the creature side stepped the man carefully. 

"There!" Loki pointed out. "Did you hear a woman say 'I'm not going to kill you' ?"

Thor furrowed his brows and shook his head no as the thing ran by them, the boy trying to restrain it screaming as he was pulled along, bashing into cars and light poles in an effort to stop it. The creature must be incredibly strong. And somehow Loki could hear its thoughts. 

"Isn't this the kind of thing you'd get involved in?" Loki asked Thor, taking a few steps out into the street to watch the scene. 

"I might, but we have something more important going on right now," Thor answered as he followed him and tried to grab hold of him. 

"Good enough for me," Loki smirked before side stepping Thor's reach and putting on an illusion. 

Thor was soon looking at a reflection of his own face instead of Loki's as he grasped a fake Mjolnir and flew off after the creature. Thor was left in the illusion Loki had cast over him of Midgardian clothing and Mjolnir disguised as an umbrella. Luckily it still worked just as it always had. 

"Impulsive fool," Thor grumbled before taking off after them all. 

"What is that?" Loki asked the boy once he'd caught up to him. 

The boy turned his head and gasped. 

"Mr Thor?!" He practically squealed before running face first into a light pole and losing his grip on the creatures ropes. The light pole creaked loudly as it bent and broke in half, it and the boy falling to the ground. 

Loki shook his head and continued to pursue the creature. He wondered if he could hear its thoughts, would it be able to hear him? Which led to a more complicated question: what should he say? 

She was running at an incredible speed, almost too fast for Loki to keep up, and she seemed like destruction was not on her to do list today. Didn't she say something about going home earlier?

"Excuse me, miss, do you need some help?" He attempted to ask her. 

Her head whipped around so fast, she lost her footing and her momentum had her tumbling head over tail down the street till she finally came to rest in an alleyway. Loki couldn't help but wince sympathetically. He landed in the alleyway and, without thinking, removed his illusion. When she got up she would see Loki as himself. 

He darn near felt sorry for the poor thing as it struggled on its back amongst the garbage, it's motions seemed very human in nature, but that didn't work with its actual body. The tail flailed about, throwing off her balance every time she tried to right herself. Her arms reached out but were much too short compared to her long neck and snout. This was taking too long. 

"Just hold still," he commanded her. 

He was impressed with her immediate compliance. When she stopped her struggling, he carefully used his powers to pick her up, turn her over and set her on her feet. 

"Are you alright?" He asked her. 

"Can you hear me?" Her voice came tentatively as she turned her long face to gaze down at him with one eye. 

"Yes," he replied and she was instantly reaching out to him with her claws. 

"Oh thank goodness!" She breathed. "Please help me! I don't-"

Suddenly she was knocked in the face by an umbrella and flinched back like a puppy smacked with a newspaper. Loki's brows furrowed and turned behind him to look at Thor, to see how hard he had thrown that hammer. 

Thor also seemed taken aback by the lack of impact as he and the boy showed up at the alleyway. 

"Is that Mjolnir? I thought it was a hammer.." the boy asked but was largely ignored by everyone. 

"She's fine," Loki told Thor but she misunderstood. 

"I'm not fine!" She yelled as she tried to rub her muzzle with her short arms. "I'm a freaking dinosaur right now! I'm not normally a dinosaur, ok?!"

"I understand that," Loki assured her. 

"Who's he talking to?" The boy asked Thor. 

"I think the creature," He replied, gesturing with the umbrella. 

"He can talk to dinosaurs? That's a cool super power."

Loki rolled his eyes. 

"So you're the only one who can hear me?" She asked him, still turning her face sideways to look at him with one eye. "Tell them I need help, tell them I was a human. My name is Magnolia-"

But she was cut off by a strange sizzling noise. Everyone looked down to see a glowing orange circle around the two of them. 

"Loki, what are you doing?" Thor demanded. 

"This isn't me!" Loki tried to assure him before letting out a yelp as the ground beneath him gave way. 

——————————————  
At this point we can see Thor is having a bad day too. The only one having a good day is Spider-Man since he just met one of his favorite avengers. 

"Whoa, what happened to them?" He asked Thor as they stared at the now empty alley. "I'm um, I'm Spider-Man by the way. I'm a huge fan, Mr Thor, sir."

Thor saw a card laying on the pavement where Loki had been a second ago and walked cautiously over to it. 

"Loki?" He whispered as he poked the card with his 'umbrella' before leaning down to pick it up, a simple address written on it. 

"What's that?" Spider-Man asked as he walked up beside him. "Oh, Bleeker street? I know where that is."

"Then you'll take me there, Spider Child," Thor told him as he thrust the card into his hand. 

"Uh, ok! Awesome! We're teaming up!" He said excitedly. "But it, uh, it's Spider-Man."

Thor grinned and raised one brow at him.   
"No it's not. Not yet anyway."

"Why does everyone say that?" He mumbled to himself. "Alright, are we walking or flying?"

"You can fly?" Thor asked, surprised. 

"Not exactly, but close. Wanna see if you can keep up?" With that he made a weird gesture with his hand and line of fine rope shot out from his wrist. He grasped it and swung away. What an interesting child.


	8. Strange Things are Happening

Have you ever felt the sensation of "having the rug pulled from underneath you"? Mostly people use the expression metaphorically for when you're so shocked by something it feels as if the ground you're standing on literally flips you off. For example, if you were told today that you're adopted and you hadn't suspected a thing your whole life. But they use that expression for a reason. Imagine the literal and not metaphoric at all ground had just vanished from beneath your feet and you plummeted into blackness. That's where we left Loki. 

Thor and Spider-Man had a fun little stroll through New York together, Loki was falling. Thor met a man named Doctor Stephen Strange at a spooky old building and got a glass of never ending beer, Loki was falling. Strange told Thor he knew exactly where Odin was and even went to lengths to get Thor there as quickly as possible, a much more agreeable trickster than Loki who, by the way, was falling. He'd been falling so long that at some point he decided to time it. 

"I've been falling for 30 minutes!" He announced angrily once he'd hit the floor quite hard, a vein throbbing in his temple. 

"You can handle him from here?" Strange said to Thor as Loki pealed himself off the floor boards and got to his feet. 

"Yes, of course. Thank you for your help," Thor was saying as Loki turned to face them and saw them shaking hands in front of a portal. 

Strange wished them good luck but Loki wasn't having it. 

"Handle me?" He repeated. "Who are you- wait."

Loki stopped and looked around the room. 

"Where is she?" 

"Oh, I made your pet a little more travel sized for convenience. Now, you better get going I think. Bye bye now," and with that Strange moved the portal to envelope them. 

"No, no, no, wait!" Loki cried trying to escape, trying to tell Strange to take the girl, but ending up falling on his face once more. 

He landed in lush green grass and could hear and smell the ocean. He jumped up and looked for any sign of that portal. There was no trace of it. Now what did that half rate wizard mean by travel size? Loki patted his pockets till he felt an odd lump in his breast pocket. He peered in it and saw her shrunken to a hundredth of her size and knocked out cold. 

"Well," he sighed. 

"Father?" He heard Thor say with a tremor in his voice and turned to see Thor walking toward his fathers figure on the cliff. 

Sure enough, there was Odin. Loki sighed again as he took one last glance at the creature in his pocket before following. 

"Look at this place. It's beautiful," Odin commented absently, not turning his attention to them fully. 

"Father, it is us," Thor says worriedly, trying to get his father to look at him. 

"My sons," Odin says which surprises Loki enough to drop his guard and look at Odin with a semblance of emotion. "I've been waiting for you."

"I know, we've come to take you home," Thor smiles at him. 

"Home," Odin repeats hollowly. "Yes. Your mother, she calls for me. Do you hear it?"

Loki's brows constrict slightly when Frigga is mentioned, and now looks concerned as well. He glanced at Thor and saw him giving a nasty glare. 

"Loki, lift your magic," he nearly growls. 

But Loki knows, he knows this behavior and these words are none of his own doing, and he can only offer Thor a pathetic shake of the head and sincere look of innocence. He stiffens when Odin turns to him as well, but he smiles. 

"It took me quite a while to break free from your illusion. Frigga would have been proud," he commented.

Why wasn't Odin angry? Why wasn't he sentencing him to the dungeon for eternity or screaming that his birth right was to die? Why were his words kind now? It was unexpected and ... well, nice. Unlike the way Thor was looking at him right now. 

Odin put a hand on Thor's shoulder and turned behind him. 

"Come and sit with me. I don't have much time," Odin said as he steered them toward a rock a few yards away. He sits down, out of breath and weak, nothing like his usual self. Thor and Loki sit on either side of him and eye him carefully. 

"I know we failed you, but we can make this right," Thor began to say, being his usual impatient self. 

"I failed you," Odin corrected him. 

'You can say that again,' Loki couldn't help but think. 

"It is upon us... Ragnarok," Odin went on as he gazed out over the ocean. 

"No, I've stopped Ragnarok," Thor told him with a proud smile. "I put an end to Surtur."

"No, it has already begun," Odin said with a downcast look. "She's coming. My life was all that held her back, but my time has come. I cannot keep her away any longer."

Loki was used to Odin's cryptic ways and outright lies, but he didn't know what he was on about now. Thor looked even more confused. 

"Father, who are you talking about?" Thor asked as his brows creased and his breath shortened. 

Odin looked vaguely like a child caught red handed in something and having no choice but to confess. 

"The Goddess of Death, Hela. My first born.." he turned to Thor. "Your sister."

Loki can't believe what he's hearing. He almost wants to laugh, almost wants to look at Thor and tell him it's his turn. His turn to find out he'd been lied to since birth, his turn to cope with a new identity, his turn to be the victim of Odin. But he can't, or at least, he doesn't. He was distracted by the slight motions of someone forgotten in his pocket. 

"... what?" Thor asked softly, sounding just as torn as the day Loki had lied about fathers death and their mother not allowing him to come home. 

"Her violent appetites grew beyond my control. I couldn't stop her, so I imprisoned her," Odin went on to explain. "Locked her away. She draws her strength from Asgard...and once she gets there, her powers will be limitless."

"Whatever she is, we can stop her," Thor stated optimistically. "We can face her together."

'Count me out, she not my sister,' Loki couldn't help but think.

"No we won't," Odin said sadly as he placed a hand on Thor's. "I'm on a different path now. This you must face alone."

Odin looks Thor in the eyes one last time as his breathing becomes more labored. 

"I love you my sons."

Loki is caught between two emotions. On one hand, Odin had pulled a crappy stunt once again, leaving them alone to clean up one of his mistakes. On the other, he'd finally said something Loki had been longing to hear, acting like he'd always wanted him to. Guess it's easy to do when you don't have to do it very long. 

"Look at that," Odin comments, nodding at the view in front of them. "Remember this place. Home."

Then he began to fade away, to join the stardust of the universe. The All Father was dead. There was a moment of loss felt between the two men left behind, and then the clouds rolled in. They darkened and rumbled with faint thunder. Thor's expression was equally as dark as he stood and looked straight ahead. 

Loki didn't have to be a genius to figure out what was coming. The blame, the end of an over powered finger pointed at him. 

"Brother," Loki tries to sound calm as he stands and braces himself. 

Thor faced him finally and the rage in him manifested as electricity crackling about his tightly clenched fists. 

"This was your doing."

Ah yes, there it was. The blame. And yet Loki couldn't fault him for it. Hadn't he gone through it and done the same to Thor? He supposed it was time to reap what he'd sown, even if it was poorly timed right after their fathers death. But wait. 

His hand went to his pocket where someone innocent lay in harms way. But both are distracted by an especially loud crack of thunder that splits reality in front of them. 

They turn back to share a look with each other and a siblings agreement is made, we face this together now and kill each other later. They both turned and faced the portal together, Thor pounding his umbrella on the ground and Loki breaking the illusion to reveal them in their Asgardian armor, and waited for the unknown to arrive.


	9. Hela Unleashed

A tall, slim figure stepped out of the rift. Her long dark hair was messy, there were holes in her black clothing, and she appeared dirty and gaunt, starved of power. She took a second to consider her surroundings. 

"So he's gone?" Her voice as dark as the rest of her. "That's a shame. I would've liked to have seen that."

On any other occasion Loki may have liked her. Maybe. She was staring at them intensely, waiting for them to make a move. 

"You must be Hela," Thor responded with his most diplomatic voice. "I'm Thor, son of Odin."

"Really? You don't look like him," she broke in with a wicked grin. 

"Perhaps we can reach an arrangement," Loki offered, realizing diplomacy and family ties really meant nothing to her. 

"You sound like him," her eyes lit up as she pointed to him. 

Loki shifted nervously and Thor tightened his grip on Mjolnir, both of them feeling the tension in the air. 

"Kneel," she says suddenly with all the authority in the nine realms. 

"Beg your pardon?" Loki snapped, wondering if perhaps Thor might be the adopted sibling after all. 

"Kneel.." she repeats as a long dark blade appears in her hand. "..before your Queen."

That's all it takes. 

"I don't think so," Thor says as he winds up and hurls Mjolnir at her.

The day was not done with impossibilities, it still had this one up its sleeve. Loki wondered if it was because Odin was dead and his command was lifted, or if Hela was just that powerful. But there she stood, grasping Mjolnir in her hand, holding on even as Thor tried to call it back to him. It trembled in Hela's hand but Thor could not retrieve it from her grasp. 

"It's not possible," Thor breathes. 

"Darling," Hela says to him as patronizingly as one can. "you have no idea what's possible."

With that she began to crush Thor's hammer with her bare hand. The pieces fell to the ground and a wave of energy escaped it, Thor and Loki bracing themselves against it. Loki noticed it was especially attracted to his pocket and felt her stirring and possibly growing within it. 

Thor is in pure shock. His weapon, a gift from his father, something he thought only he could lift and wield was just destroyed by this horrid woman, his sister. She ran her hands over her hair and a battle helmet with even more horns than Loki's appears on her head. 

Loki is the only one thinking clearly, obviously. Thor has no hammer, Loki has nothing even remotely helpful, in fact he's handicapped by a tiny messed up human in his pocket. None of them will do any good dead."

"Bring us back!" Loki lifts his head to the sky and calls out to Skurge to open the bifrost. 

"No!!" Thor cries, too overcome with emotion to realize they're not on good footing here. 

At that moment Hela charged them, a cause for concern to be sure. But before she reaches them the Bifrost engulfs them. And by them, I unfortunately mean all of them. 

Thor looks down to see Loki just below him, but farther down is Hela and she is gaining on them. Loki follows Thor's gaze and sees her about to catch up to him. He throws two daggers at her, that hit their mark but have little impact, before something unforeseen happens. 

His pocket crackled with energy and, with an audible whump, that dinosaur emerged at full size again. Everyone but Loki looked confused. Hela shook it off first and aimed a sword of her own at it. He heard the girls terrified little scream as she saw this, and then she exploded with more energy which knocks herself and Loki out of the bifrost. 

At this point they're both screaming. I mean, who wouldn't? Being knocked out of the bifrost was a dangerous thing, you never knew when or where you'd end up, or what condition you'd arrive in. She had him firmly grasped in her little claws as they fell through a shattered rainbow void. Out of the blackness swirled constellations and one nasty looking worm hole loomed in their path, engulfing the two of them into its own darkness. Finally it turned to a vague, cloudy atmosphere and Loki knew they were getting deposited on a planet. When the clouds parted he could see the treacherous ground below, littered with space garbage that would not cushion their landing what so ever. They must have noticed it at the same time, the particularly sharp spikes of a broken ship they were headed straight for, because as soon as Loki saw it she was already screaming again. 

And that's when everything jerked a bit to the left and they crashed into a filthy little lake instead. Loki rose to the surface, rubbing the disgusting water off his face and looking around for her. He noticed her crawling out at the waters edge, Hela's sword protruding from her back. She didn't seem to care though, she turned and looked for Loki and clumsily scampered through the garbage till she arrived at the shore closest to him. 

"Sorry, it's really not easy to swim like this, I thought I was going to drown," she apologized as she turned and offered her tail to help him out. 

Without a word he grasped it and allowed her to help him, the sword still embedded in her thick skin, though not very deep. 

"Are you alright?" He asked her once he was standing on solid ground in front of her. 

"No," she laughed a bit neurotically. "I'm really not."

"Ok, well, I mean... there's a sword in your back," Loki pointed out. 

"There's a what?" She asked, turning her head sideways again, supposedly to look at her back instead of him, but really she could see both. 

Once she caught sight of the sword she gasped.   
"Oh god, oh god," she panicked, reaching with her inarticulate arms in a futile effort to get it out herself. 

"It's alright," Loki said, placing a hand on her scrambling claw. "I'll get it. Just come down here."

Her breathing was rapid and too shallow but she complied as calmly as she could. She bent her legs down and tried to steady herself, but ultimately fell flat again. She was quite pitiful without meaning to be. 

Loki gently grasped the hilt of the sword.   
"Do you feel anything?" He asked her. 

"No," she replied, her huge head shaking no.

"Alright, I'm going to count to three and pull it out," he told her, trying to angle himself so he could pull it straight out. 

"Ok," she breathed. 

"One... two... three!" He had to pull much harder than he thought, as though her skin and body were healing around it and absorbing it already. 

"Ah!" She scrambled to her feet, her tail nearly taking him out.   
"That feels weird! Why is it tingling?"   
She questioned, hopping around in a little fit. 

"Let me see!" Loki said, annoyed as he dropped the sword and stepped closer to inspect her. 

The gash in her back was spitting little sparks of blue before sealing up completely. A faint scar being the only indication it ever happened. 

"You're fine, it's healed already," he told her, patting her rough back by that spot. 

"What? It's healed already?" She asked in disbelief as she craned her long neck to look for herself. 

"Out of everything today, that's what you can't believe?" Loki teased with a slight grin, one brow going up. 

She was trying to focus her large glassy eye on him now. He still had a hand on her back and was feeling a familiar surge of power. 

"How did this happen to you?" He questioned as he still gazed at her back, feeling the power beneath her skin. 

When she didn't answer right away, he turned to see her rubbing her snout and breathing in short little jerks. She gave a violent sneeze and shot a few feet in the air as a cloud of blue energy enveloped her. And suddenly she was a girl again. Loki reached out to catch and steady her so she wouldn't fall in garbage a fourth time today.

Her clothing was torn and singed, most of her shirt was gone and about half of her pants, but he was just looking at her dirty little face, dark blue eyes shining. 

"You got taller?" She blinked up at him before the realization registered on her features and she looked down at her hands with a gasp. "I'm a person again?!"

"Have a look," Loki said, stepping back and materializing a mirror out of nowhere. 

"Yes, that's me- I look terrible!" She quickly switched between elation and worry as she rubbed at the dirt on her face before trying to tame her hair a little, one arm trying to pull what was left of her shirt down to cover her stomach. It easily ripped and fell off of her, leaving her in a sports bra and badly damaged jeans. She looked around for something to cover herself with. 

Loki looked away to give her some privacy when something caught his attention. He put away the mirror as he stared up at the approaching ship. That's when he felt the tug at his back and glanced back to see her wrapping herself in his cape. She stared up at him sheepishly. He unclasped it from his shoulders and transformed it into a dress on her, all while the ship was setting down in front of them. 

"Let me do the talking," he said, stepping in front of her. 

The ships door opened and some gnarly looking people came flooding out. Luckily with the lake behind them they could not be surrounded. They formed a crescent around them however, holding guns and swords and being generally unfriendly.

"Are you fighters, or food?" Asked one particularly nasty looking man as he stepped toward them. 

Loki raised an unimpressed brow. 

"Neither," he stated plainly. "I am-"

"Food," the man cut him off and threw a small blue disc at him. 

Loki watched as it attached to his clothing before it electrocuted him and he immediately fell over, exposing Magnolia behind him. She gasped as he fell and looked nervously at the people moving in on them. The man threw another one of those things at her and she squealed and batted it away. The mans face clouded with confusion as he tossed another at her, this time it hit her and bounced off. 

She and the man looked down at it on the ground next to the convulsing Loki, and then looked back up at each other. This gave Magnolia some kind of upper hand here, she just knew it. Still, she just froze as the man came closer, reached down, and grabbed Loki. 

"No!" She cried as he was dragged away from her. "You can't take him, that's... that's my guy!" 

She scampered through the debris and caught up, grabbing Loki by the arm pits and wresting him away from the would be captors. Her arms wrapped around his torso from there and she held him like a giant rag doll. She wondered where this strength came from, Loki was more than half a foot taller than her in her human form. She'd be even more confused if she knew he actually weighed a little over 500 pounds being Asgardian. But she didn't know that, just like she didn't know what to do next. 

"Ok, ok, what do I do?" She asked Loki as she backed up with him. 

"Drop him or I'll kill him right there in your arms," the nasty man taunted her as he held up a small device. He pushed a button and Loki's condition worsened. 

"No! Stop that!" She cried and reached down to grab that thing off his shirt. The energy tickled her fingers and ran up her arm before she was able to rip it off him and toss it aside. When she made that motion, a bolt of energy was fired from her hand, blasting a heap of garbage nearby. That caused the people to duck and retreat a few steps. 

Loki was finally able to carry his own weight again and stood up on his own. With labored breathing he turned around and grabbed her tightly by the shoulders. 

"The Tesseract!" He exclaimed as he looked at her, a mad grin starting to form. "I have no idea how, but you have the tesseract's power!"

"Is that good?" She asked, having no clue what he was talking about. 

"It's very good," he assured her with a wicked smile. "Because I've used that power before, I should be able to use it again."

The crazy people had regathered their courage and were charging at the two of them now. Loki spun her around so her back was to his chest and raised both her arms. 

"What are you doing?" She asked with a tremor in her voice. "I don't want to hurt anyone!"

"Oh fine, you can have it your way," Loki said with a comically disgruntled tone before crossing her arms in front of her. 

And suddenly the people were gone. Or was she just in a new place now? It was so hard to tell, all the junk looked the same. She felt Loki's hands slip off her skin and she turned to face him. He already had his back to her and took a few steps up the hill they were on. 

"Now that's where we need to go," he said, pleased by whatever he saw. 

She tried to get up there with him, not seeming to find the same good footing he did. He grabbed her wrist and helped her up to where he was. From there she could see a very tall tower with a city around its base. There were large monuments of fierce looking men and creatures adorning the tower and magnolia scrunched her nose. 

"Wait, wait, wait," she said, waving her hands and almost losing her balance. Loki placed a hand on her back to steady her. "We are not on Earth, are we?"

Loki's brows furrowed as he tried to comprehend what she just said. He looked around and opened his arms to gesture at everything and then looked back at her to make a point. 

"Are you just realizing this now?" He asked. 

"At first it just looked like a junk yard!" She defended. 

"And do all earth junk yards come with cannibalistic aliens in space ships?" He asked her, like, really?

"Yeah ok, I'm just realizing it now, but a lot has happened to me in a very short amount of time, and I w-would appreciate it.." she finally started to get teary eyed and couldn't finish chastising him. 

The last thing he needed was a woman too overwrought with emotion to help him, so he decided to coddle her for the time being. 

"Shh, shh, shh," he hushed her as he gently place a hand under her chin and tilted her face up to look at him. "My apologies, I'm not having a good day either and I took it out on you."

She sniffled and wiped her eyes with her palms. 

"It's ok," she said with a hoarse voice now. "I'm sorry about your dad... and your sister. What happened to Thor though?"

"I- I don't know what happened to him.. how do you know about the rest though?" He asked, his confusion making him less eloquent than he wanted to be. 

"I wasn't actually asleep in your pocket, it just seemed like a very personal moment and I didn't want to- to make it weird or anything," she explained. 

He couldn't think about that right now so he shook his head and ignored it. 

"I can help you figure out what happened to you," he assured her, bending to look her intently in the eyes. "But we should get somewhere safer before we do that. Do you think you can help me?"

Once he had bent down to look at her, she'd been caught like a deer in the headlights. Now she was seeing properly with her human eyes and he was right there in front of her, his voice was pleasantly low and deep. 

"Sure," she nodded. "What's your name?"

"My name is Loki," he finally introduced himself. "And you're Magnolia, is that right?"

"Yep," she nodded. 'You remembered.' 

Her thought was like a faint whisper in his ear and he couldn't help but wonder if she could hear any of his. That could be bad for him. Till he knew for sure why they seemed to have a telepathic connection and how to control it, he better play it safe. For once in his life he was going to make honesty his policy.


	10. Putting Up Appearances

"So, we need to get in there," Loki told her as he pointed at the tower. "And to do that we have to look like we're important."

"Look important?" She repeated. "But aren't you important?"

His eyes had been scanning the garbage, looking for a ship that could be salvaged and passed off as their own, but he gave her another glance when she said that. 

"Well, yes, but maybe they don't know me here- I'm not even sure where here is," he informed her. "Let's just hope they've heard of Asgard and will be kind to its king."

He turned and began trekking down the hill of garbage, irritated by the uncertainty. 

"Wait, you're king of Asgard?" She asked surprised as she carefully tried to follow him, gathering up the ends of his cape so she wouldn't trip over it. 

"Yes, I have ruled Asgard for quite some time now," he said, still looking about for a ship that was vaguely functional. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," she apologized. 

"What are you apologizing for?" He asked from farther ahead of her. 

"If I haven't treated you properly. Don't you have to have a certain etiquette around royalty?" She asked as she staggered over the junk pile. 

She didn't hear anything so she stopped and looked up, looking for him. He had stopped a few yards away at the base of the junk mountain and was just staring up at her quizzically. Something shifted under her feet and she threw out a hand for balance, but she was falling down again. Loki heard a short scream from her as she disappeared, a hollow thud followed. Oh dear, is this what it was going to be like the whole time? If he didn't know any better he'd think she fell into a ship. 

He hiked back up there and saw a dark void where she'd been standing a moment ago. He moved some debris and saw it was indeed a hatch. She was already down there so he figured they might as well check it out. And he might as well keep a safe distance from her. 

"Magnolia?" 

"Yeah, I'm here," she called up out of the darkness. 

"What are you in? Can you look around?" He asked her as he crouched over the opening. 

"It's really dark, it's freaking me out," she said. 

Loki saw two spots of light start to glow in the darkness. 

"Are you sure you're alone down there?" He asked her, surprised he was a little nervous. 

Suddenly the two spots ignited and spread, revealing it was Magnolia who was glowing. 

"Why?!" She cried. "Did you see something?!"

"Calm down, apparently it was just you," he sighed, running a hand over his face. 

"Am I on fire? What's happening?" She asked as she held her arms out, looking at them. 

"Are you in pain?" Loki questioned as he got more comfortable. 

"No?"

"Can you see better?"

"Yeah?"

"Then have a look around and tell me what you see."

"Ok," she said, not thrilled with his lack of concern right now. 

Her arms were washed in a yellowish glow that turned to blue whisps as it radiated off of her. It was actually kind of pretty. She held her arms out to light her way and walked around the room she was in. She disappeared from Loki's view. 

"I found the cockpit!" She called out. 

There were four seats with various controls. Also what she'd call a windshield, the trash visible on the other side of the glass. She turned and went back the way she'd come, this time going to the far left side of the room she'd been in. 

"There's a few containers here," she updated Loki when she saw them. 

"What's in them?" He asked, his legs dangling from the opening she'd fallen through. 

"I dunno, they're locked," she said as she held one of the locks in her glowing hand. It deformed and popped open. "Oh, never mind."

She opened the lid quickly so she wouldn't melt that too. 

"Oh mylanta!" She cried when she saw it filled with glittering gold bars. 

"What?" Loki snapped, finally some concern in his voice. There was a thud as he dropped into the ship as well. 

"I think we can look important with this," she smiled up at him. 

He looked relieved and nodded. 

"How many containers are there?" He asked, squinting into the darker areas of the ships hold. 

Magnolia got up and walked around, illuminating three more cases. She popped the locks off all of them and checked the contents were all the same. 

"Four cases total," she told him. 

"Good," he said, clapping his hands together. "Let's see if we can salvage the ship itself."

"You know how to do that?" She asked as she stepped closer to him. 

"Yes, I might be able to do it," he told her as he gestured for her to go ahead of him. 

"Oh good," she sighed as they trekked down a narrow hallway. "I'm afraid I won't be really helpful."

"Oh, you've been plenty helpful," he said with lilt in his tone that sounded a bit sarcastic to her. 

"Can we make a deal?" She asked a little snappishly, stopping to turn and look up at him. 

His brows raised and he found himself trying to stifle a chuckle, she was so small and glowing feistily. 

"I'm ok with being teased, really I am," she said, her words punctuated by her glowing hands. "I can dish it, I can take it, I can banter- but, just for today, can we not?"

"I can abide by that, but I wasn't teasing you," he informed her, leaning against one wall. 

"You weren't?" She asked, and he answered with a shake of his head. "Then... sorry for snapping at you."

She turned and began walking again, embarrassed for snapping at him, for forgetting he was a king and she was an elephant poop shoveler. 

"I meant it, you have been really helpful," he went on, a chipper tone in his voice. "You kept Hela from impaling me, you kept me from being impaled again on this planet, you rescued me from those savages who would have eaten me, and you found us this ship! How is any of that not helpful?"

"I can't really take credit for finding the ship," she mumbled. 

"That just means you're lucky," Loki said happily, briefly squeezing her shoulders. 

"Wait a minute," she said, coming to a halt and turning back to him again. "Are you saying I saved your life? About 3 times was it?"

His eyes flicked to the side and then back to her, a deep pause in the conversation set in. 

"Well, I probably would have been fine, you just... sped up the process and saved me the hassle of doing it myself," he back pedaled. "Were you hoping I'd be indebted to you?"

"Just a little," she easily admitted. "Just to do me the favor of getting me back to earth at some point."

Her glow began to dim, the shadows curling closer around them. Loki realized he was still a king and right now he had one subject. If he kept that subject motivated and happy, she just might help him get what he wanted. Time to be a benevolent ruler. 

"Of course I'll do my best to help you," he assured her. "I just need to get into a position to help you, do you understand?"

She nodded yet still looked downcast. 

"Alright, so help me here with the ship. You're my-" he froze with his mouth open, realizing he was about to quote one of those earthlings his brother called friends. 

"I'm your what?" She pressed, looking like she could be weirded out at being his anything. 

Loki sighed and slumped his shoulders, giving in. 

"You're my glow stick of destiny."

She stared at him for a beat before she snorted and began giggling, her glow growing brighter than before. 

"I guess I can handle that," she said with a little bit of confidence to her now. "Where are we going?"

"That hatch just behind you," he nodded over her shoulder. 

She took a few steps back and saw a square with a handle set into it. She bent down to reach for it but Loki stopped her. 

"Let me get that," he said as he swooped down and grabbed it first. "Your hands are already full."

In all honesty he was worried she'd melt it shut. He lifted it and gave her a smile. 

"Ladies first," he gestured down the hatch. 

"Oh yeah, ladies first into the creepy old dark place, that's the height of chivalry right there," she went on as she lowered herself down the hatch, the shadows enveloping Loki and hiding his grin. She could dish it. 

He dropped in after her, the small engine room well illuminated. He took a look around at the various parts. They all looked in working order, so he flicked a few test engine switches, but nothing happened. It seemed to be without power. 

"Shine yourself over here," he waved her over and pointed at what he wanted illuminated. 

She was a willing but not eager glow stick, she gave him a good sideways glance as she did his bidding. As her hand got closer to whatever it was he was looking at, little lights started blinking about the room as various systems tried to come on. 

"Whoa," Loki said, looking around. 

Instinctively she pulled her hand back. 

"No, no," Loki said. "Uh, here, grab this."

He pointed to something that reminded her of a Tesla coil and she looked at him unsure.

"You'll be fine," he said comfortingly as he tilted his head. 

Hesitantly she touched it with one finger at first, and the lights all came up. There was a whirring noise, a gentle hum, that filled the air. Loki clasped his hands together gratefully. 

"Yes! You," he said pointing to her with a very pleased smile on his face. "Are fantastic! Wait right there."

He turned and went to climb out the hatch which sparked a small panic in her. 

"Wait!" She called, taking her hand off the thing and taking a few steps after him, the ship powering down into darkness again. "Where are you going?"

"I was going to the cockpit to get us out of the garbage heap," he told her, one foot on the ladder already. "So I need you to stay here and power the ship."

"You're not- you're not gonna .... Shanghai me, are you?" She asked, fiddling nervously with her fingers. 

"I beg your pardon?" He asked, one arm coming off the ladder so he could turn and look at her better. 

She seemed to glow pink around the cheeks as she waved it off. 

"Nothing, never mind. It- it's stupid," she said and took a step back from him. "I'll stay and power the ship."

She turned and went back over to the Tesla coil looking thing and placed both hands on it this time. She kept her back turned to him as the ship lit up again, she didn't see him linger at the ladder for a second, thinking of something to say and coming up blank. Finally he turned and went up the ladder. He closed the hatch she had fallen through on his way to the cock pit. He checked all the systems and ship integrity and everything checked out. He wondered for a moment how this was missed by the scrappers out there, but he dared not complain. 

He sat at the controls and lifted it easily out of the garbage, using his powers to create a full crew for the ship, as well as give it an Asgardian make over. He aimed it toward that tower in the distance and put it on auto pilot. He went back to the hatch in the hall and knelt down to check on Magnolia. 

"You're doing marvelous, we're on our way toward the tower," he informed her. 

She didn't answer back though, so he bent down to look into the room.

"Magnolia?" He didn't see her down there. How was that possible?

He straightened up and looked around. 

"Magnolia?" He called louder. 

Still nothing. Did she turn into pure energy and get sucked into the engine?

'Where are you?' He thought desperately. 

"I'm right here," she said as she stepped out of a door way behind him. 

She wasn't glowing anymore and looked much cleaner than before, her hair wasn't a total mess either. Plus she'd put on a crew members flight suit that might have looked good on her if it were the proper size. 

"How did you-?" He questioned, pointing from her to the engine room. 

"Oh, I was able to charge it? I guess? I was careful not to blow it up though... obviously... "she explained awkwardly.   
"oh uh, here's your cape back. I thought it would help you look more important if you had a cape, and if I had real clothes on. Thanks for lending it to me," she spoke nervously as she handed him back his cape, only making brief eye contact a few times. 

"Mmm yes," he murmured as he took the cape back from her. "The uniform needs some work though, it's a bit big, isn't it?"

"It fit the best out of everything I could find," she said as she looked down at herself, her hands grabbing loose material around her waist. 

"Oh dear," Loki said in a shock before reaching out to grab her waist like a sandwich. "You're paper thin. Who has been neglecting your care?"

She was awkwardly holding her arms up around chest height, not sure how she felt about having hands wrapped around her waist. 

"Who- what now?" She stammered as she felt heat rise to her cheeks and she avoided his piercing gaze. 

"Who takes care of you? Or should I say, who isn't taking care of you?" He said as he let go of her and crossed his arms, still looking at her intently. 

"Ummm, me? I guess," she answered as she smoothed her hands over her shirt. 

"You? You take care of yourself?" He questioned though somewhat doubtfully. "By yourself."

She bit her lips and nodded. 

A flicker of an expression crossed his face, as his lips parted and his eyebrows drew together, but then he decided on another expression all together. His brows shot up and he gave a slight shake of his head. 

"We'll have to remedy that."


	11. Pinkies and Promises

Magnolia stood with Loki in the main compartment of the ship. He circled her like a shark, a shark with a critical eye for fashion and theatrics that is. He was deciding what role she would play in the scenario he was formulating. 

"Well, I'd say the most obvious choice would be to say you're my wife, but what if one of us has to seduce some one else..." he mused aloud but mostly to himself. 

"Sorry, what?" She broke in with highly raised brows. 

"Seduction is a good trick to get information or items we might need-"

"I don't know if you've noticed anything about me but I'm not seductive in the slightest, not even if I tried. Trust me, I've been single for all but 9 months of my life," she said with an air of pleading. 

"Wait, I think you call it something else now, is it 'flirting'?"

"That's a good clarification," Magnolia admitted. "But I'm still bad at that too."

"Fine, fine," Loki waved her off and began pacing again, thumbing his bottom lip. "I wasn't set on that anyway."

Magnolia's shoulders relaxed as she stood still again and allowed him to circle her. 

"Given your strength it would make sense to say you're my body guard, good way to keep you close too."

Magnolia perked up at that idea, it was much more agreeable. 

"But you're so doe eyed and soft no one would believe it."

She deflated again, surprised by just how much that stung. 

"Now wait a minute," she piped up. "Wouldn't that be a good thing? No one would expect it from me."

Loki paused in thought.   
"Ok, that ones still on the table then," he said before beginning his march again. 

"Or I could just be your sister," she suggested with a shrug. 

Loki gave one explosively humorless laugh at that.   
"Ha! Please. After today I'd rather not have any kind of sister," he said as he raked his fingers through his hair and an image of the sword in Magnolia's back flashed in his mind. "Besides, you're an only child, you'd never be able to play a convincing sibling."

"How'd you know I was an only child?" She wondered, turning to look at him in his revolutions around her. 

"I spent more than two seconds with you, it's obvious," Loki smiled as he spread his palms. "Besides, if someone decides you are worth seducing, angry brothers don't carry as much weight as a jealous would-be lover. We should keep that option open just in case."

"This is so weird," Magnolia groaned as she buried her face in her hands. 

"You could be an advisor or counselor of some kind, do you feel intelligent enough to pull off that rouse?" He asked her, pausing his revolving to lean back and glance at her face. 

"If we were back on earth my answer would be probably-" she said with a sharp inhale. 

"But we're not on earth," they both said at once. 

Magnolia pursed her lips and nodded. 

"I could say I just like to have a woman's intuition about things.." he trailed off when he saw her incredulous expression. "Right then, bodyguard is it? I know just the look."

A golden glow surrounded Magnolia's body before fading to reveal an armored bodice with a leather skirt. She had pants underneath and boots to her knees. She breathed a sigh of relief, her fear of being one of those scantly clad ladies from the video games hadn't come true.

"What do you think, is it acceptable?" Loki asked as he watched her appraise it. 

He materialized a mirror for her again. 

"Wow, it's really cool," she said softly as she took in every angle. She had no idea she was dressed just like a very old friend of Loki's named Lady Sif. 

As Loki waited for her to be done a realization finally caught up with him. When he'd suggested that she pretend to be his wife she hadn't protested that specifically, only the possibility of having to flirt with other people. He wasn't sure what good that did, but the thought crossed his mind, took a seat, and looked like it might stay a while. 

"So," Magnolia distracted him from his new mental house guest. "What do I call you? Your majesty? Your highness?"

Why was this human so compliant? He was tempted to use the word 'kneel' just to see what would happen. But that had nothing to do with her question so he better snap to it.

His brows furrowed, not fond of either statement, and settled on the first word being the problem. 

"How about 'My Lord'?" He suggested. "It's a bit less... ostentatious."

She raised one brow and glanced around at the illusions he'd cast on the ship.   
"Hmm, I thought you liked that kind of thing," she mused. 

"Sorry, wasn't it not that long ago you were worried about not treating me, a king, with proper etiquette?" He reminded her with a barely hidden smirk. 

Her face scrunched up in a wince. Oh yes, she had forgotten that bit. She also forgot that he was as alone here as she was, and without her he would be worse off. There was a long list of things she had forgotten, but what she did remember was that this guy had figured out she was a girl trapped in a dinosaur body and tried to help her. 

"Sorry," she said sincerely. "I have a smart mouth on me and it gets worse when I'm stressed out."

Loki heard the shudder in the deep breath she took. 

"Look, I know it's a bit early to ask this but, do you trust me?" He asked her seriously. 

She stared at him and bit her bottom lip for a moment. Finally she took a few strides to stand right in front of him. She held up the pinky of her right hand to him. 

"Can you promise me two things?" She asked. 

He looked at her raised pinky and then at her intense eyes. 

"Don't leave me behind, and don't trick or lie to me," she revealed her terms. 

"And what am I supposed to do with this?" He lifted his chin, gesturing to her pinky. 

"Oh, it's a pinky promise. Here," she reached out and took his wrist, lifting his arm up and linking her pinky with his. 

Her hands were ridiculously small and her pinky wasn't even half the length of his, it didn't even feel like it had real bones in it. Maybe just cartilage, like a shark. But she gripped his finger tightly nonetheless. She finally slipped her hand away. 

"That was just a demonstration, that's not legally binding," she clarified. 

She took a little breath and put her pinky back up. 

"Ok, for real, can you promise me those two things?" She repeated. 

Loki's brows furrowed as he contemplated exactly what she was asking of him. He was the trickster, the liar. That was his thing. And she was asking him not to do that with her, little old her he'd known for just a few hours. But then he thought of her first stipulation, not to leave her behind. She was just scared of being alone somewhere she didn't belong. Unfortunately, he knew that fear well. 

"I promise," he slipped his pinky back around hers and saw relief wash over her face. 

"Now," she gave a small smile as she looked up into his face. "I trust you."

Those words hit him strangely once he heard them come from her lips. Had anyone ever said that to him before? Even when Thor was yelling at him for his betrayals, did he ever once make the complaint that he had broken his trust? His 'parents' never trusted him with the truth and would never have trusted him with the throne. But honestly...

Had he ever given them a reason to?

He ran his tongue over his teeth and felt that tiny finger latched onto his. 

"Then don't worry. I'll get us somewhere safe and comfortable and I'll figure things out from there," he assured her, very easily not a lie. 

"And I promise to do whatever I can to help you," she added her own promise in return as it was only fair. 

Did you ever hear the paradox of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object? It's hard to tell what the result would be, and it was the same with Loki and Magnolia, one person who had lies and trickery in every fiber of his being and the other who never lied because it made her 'feel icky'. The only thing that would be harder to figure out is if Magnolia was the immovable object or the unstoppable force. She was a little bit of both though she didn't know it yet. 

Loki, however, didn't seem so immovable anymore because, you see... he wasn't used to getting what he wanted, whether he knew he wanted it or not. And today he got two things: trust and the promise of help from someone who wasn't lying.


	12. Back at the Ranch

Fury stood in sand and rubble, the shrill cries of seagulls floating by on the salty breeze. Fury's whole aesthetic was really made for cold, rainy days in a city setting, so he looked absolutely ridiculous 100 feet from the beach on a sunny day. The only saving grace was that the beach looked positively apocalyptic. 

What the heck am I talking about, you ask? Oh yeah, I got a bit bored telling you all the gooey goings on between Loki and Magnolia so I thought I'd take us back to earth for a bit, we obviously want to know what's going on there, right? 

Even though right now she doesn't remember it, we know that Magnolia managed to make something go boom, right? Well, she blew up the equivalent of a city block. And a block that was built on a pier at that. So that pier also went boom and everything on it dropped to the sand below. There hadn't been any fire to the explosion, it was pure energy. Anything fragile was disintegrated; paper, plastic, flesh and bone. Metal was bent and melted into new shapes, and some concrete had even been melted into a glass like texture, like sand struck by lightening. 

And naturally if something goes boom in New York at least one super hero is gonna look up from their coffee for a second. Especially when that boom coincides with elephants showing up in Madison square park, followed up with Spider-Man chasing a velociraptor (?) through midtown Manhattan.

Fury's phone rang as he was running his hand over the smooth surface of a blob of concrete that had solidified like an 8 foot splash of water. He tapped his ear piece to take the call. 

"Fury," he stated simply, noticing some three pronged tracks in the sand. 

"Hey, did you get my gift yet?" Tony Stark's unmistakable sass came through. 

The timing was impeccable, Fury could just now hear the familiar sounds of Tony's propulsion system. Tony wasn't there himself, but he had sent a few of his toys to help the excavation. 

"They're touching down now," Fury confirmed, looking heavenward and squinting his one good eye. 

"Do you have any hunches or gut feelings yet?" Tony asked him, not seriously of course, when was Stark ever serious?

"I sure do, why don't you tell me what they are," Fury refused to play along and drag this out, he just had to get Tony to do his favorite thing: talk. 

"Oooh," Tony sighed. "I'm betting your gut says that power spike was definitely teseract related."

"The teseract isn't on earth, though," Fury pointed out. 

"That's where it gets interesting," Tony was smiling. "Guess who visited earth today?"

That stopped Fury in his tracks. 

"You're kidding?" 

"Would I kid you?" Tony asked in fake shock. 

Fury remained silent so finally Tony went on. 

"Not only did Thor pay us an unannounced visit, but he seems to have brought good old Rock of Ages with him, no leash or muzzle this time. The spiderling told me he saw it all first hand," Tony explained. 

"And did he see first hand where they went?" Fury questioned. 

"Yeah, Loki and the dinosaur went down a rabbit hole and the kid took Thor to an address on Bleecker street. After that, your guess is as good as mine, no ones gone in or out for over an hour."

"Great," Fury sighed and rubbed his eye. "What else do you know?"

"Oh, just that the girl who took care of the elephants found in Madison square came to one of my interns-"

"Your kid Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man - I know, I'm keeping up," Fury nodded impatiently. 

"K well, Peter spent some time on my computers looking into Barney Bailey and his show because that girl came to tell him something bad was going down there. Seemed scared, didn't want to tell Peter any more than that, didn't even want him looking into it himself," Tony continued. "I guess she was right."

"I'd like to know where she is," Fury glanced around. "Did you send me the brute squad or do any of these tin men have brains?"

"Wow, you're really mixing up your Wizard of Oz characters today, chief. What are you wanting?" Tony asked. 

"I wanna know if there's any trace remains here to give me an idea who might be dead or alive."

"Hmmm, I'm looking at the video feeds, it'll be very, very small traces, but I'll see what I can do- oh we might have a winner!" Tony shouted triumphantly. 

One of the bots was approaching Fury with a black lump in its hands. 

"I think we have a computer here, I'll have the bot bring it back and I'll see what I can salvage," Tony informed him as the bot lifted off and made its way in the direction of Stark Tower. 

"Good, keep me informed. Now, what's that address on Bleecker street?"


End file.
